Doc’s take

“I just took a deep breath and relaxed and was happy we won,” Rivers said following his team’s win over the Milwaukee Bucks Wednesday night. “It was good for everybody, obviously. It was good for me because I can, you know, go out and shop again. And it’s great for the players.”

Rivers was in a slapstick mood in his postgame press conference. After he was done talking, he joked with reporters that he didn’t want to see them again for a while.

“Nobody call me,” said Rivers. “I’m done with you. I don’t want to see you guys for three or four days. It’s the All-Star break.”

On whether he felt sorry for the Bucks, who are going through a losing streak of their own: “I don’t feel sorry for anyone. We were playing us, when you think about it, with all the (Milwaukee) injuries. Fortunately for us it was a race, when you looked at this game, to see if (Michael) Redd was going to come back first or Paul (Pierce). And we won the race.”

On Gerald Green: “I thought the game changed with the second unit, and us going small, and us playing zone all at the same time. I thought Gerald (Green) today was phenomenal. Obviously, that’s not the type of scoring you want him every night, just standing behind the three-point line and making them. But they were timely. We needed him. We needed him to make those shots.”

On the reaction in the locker room: “The guys are just relieved. They’re taking monkeys off each others’ backs and all that stuff. It’s just a relief to get that done. After the Minnesota game, I told our guys that we got our team back. You could feel the energy…even though in the other games through this entire hellish streak, we were in games…but you thought that you had to trick the game up to try to play. I thought the Minnesota game we just played a basketball game and almost won it. Tonight we played a basketball game and won it.”

On the home crowd: “Our crowd’s been amazing. This isn’t Philadelphia, alright (to a reporter from Philadelphia)? You know we had a couple of games where they got on me and got on our guys, but for the most part –The best comment I head through this while thing was the last home game (New Jersey) when we started struggling, and some guy yells out, ‘I’m not quitting on you guys.’ That was a fan. And it was funny. And I thought, ‘what a great line from a fan.’”